The importance of historical hermeneutics

To ignore what can be learned by attending to scriptural interpretation for most of church history--including, if not especailly, by broadly orthodox Christians who were not American evangelicals--is foolish and arrogant. One need not be bound to accept every biblical interpretation rendered in every age of the church to nonetheless benefit enormously from the long experience and possible insights of Bible-reading, theologically reflecting believers across two millennia.

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 155.

heremeutical trajectories

Although the Bible is clear on central matters of the faith, it is flexible in many matters that pertain to the day-to-day. To put it more positively, the Bible sets trajectories, not rules, for a good many issues that confront the church...Different [people] in different contexts will enter into these trajectories in different ways and, therefore, express their commitment to Christ differently. This flexibility of application is precisely what is modeled for us int he pages of Scripture itself.

Peter Enns in Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 141.

Is the doctrine of inspiration deistic?

Of course the Bible as described above is the primary testifying, mediating witness to Jesus Christ. Of course the Bible comes to the church in writing and therefore enjoys a durability and some level of material objectivity over time (leaving aside the problems of copying and translating). But something is nevertheless wrong with the idea that all presence, communication, fellowship, exchange, and commerce between God and humans always and only transpire somehow through the paper and ink of the Bible. That is an overly rationalistic, modern approach to faith and life. John Webster rightly notes, "Accounts of scriptural inspiration are not infrequently curiously deistic, in so far as the biblical text can itself become a revelatory agent by virtue of an act of divine inspiration in the past."

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 119

Luther and christocentric reading

...this Christocentric view of scripture was a hallmark of Martin Luther's approach to the Bible. Luther insisted that "the source" of scripture is the "cross of Christ," to which, when the reader is led, "then he will surely strike the center." Bloesch notes that Luther also spoke of certain biblical passages as hard nuts whose shells had to be cracked by throwing them against the rock of Christ, which would then produce their "delicious kernel." According to Luther, "Christ is the Lord of Scripture." And again, "Scripture is to be understood...for Christ. Hence it must either be referred to him, or it must not be held to be true Scripture." Yet again, Luther declared: "The whole scripture is about Christ alone everywhere, if we look to its inner meaning, though superficially it may sound different."

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 106.

John Stott and the purpose of scripture

The Bible is primarily a book neither of science, nor of literature, nor of philosophy, but of salvation...The salvation for which the Bible instructs us is available "through faith in Christ Jesus." Therefore, since scripture concerns a salvation and salvation is through Christ, Scirpture is full of Christ. Jesus himself thus understood the nature and function of the Bible. "The Scriptures," he said, "testify about me."...Our savior Jesus Christ himself (in terms of promise and fulfillment) is Scripture's unifying theme.

John Stott in Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 103

Christ-centered reading

For one thing, seeing Christ as central compels us to always try to make sense of everyting we read in any part of scripture in light of our larger knowledge of who God is in Jesus Christ. We do not then read scripture devotionally to try to find tidbits there that are "meaningful to" or that "speak to" us, wherever we are in our personal subjective spiritual experiences. We do not read scripture as detached historians trying to judge its technical accuracy in recounting events. We do not read scripture as a vast collection of infallible propositions whose meanings and implications can be understood on their own particular terms. We only, always, and everywhere read scripture in view of its real subject matter: Jesus Christ...Thus, the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834-92) wrote, "O you who open your Bibles and want to understand a text, the way to get into the meaning of a text is through the door, Christ."

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 98

Homophily and interpretation

We know sociologically that the principle of "homophily" (love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself) is one of the strongest forces operating in social life. As a result, biblicists (and most other Christians) who interpret the Bible in the same way have a very strong tendency to cluster together into homogeneous social networks of similarly believing people. One name for that when it is institutionalized is "Protestant denominations." Most people--including most biblicists--tend to live in relatively "small" worlds, in the subcultures and social circles with which they are most at home and comfortable. Homophily is powerful this way--even the most seemingly "cosmopolitan" people tend actually to live in parochial worlds. In fact, empirical research shows that evangelicals tend to live in more religiously homogeneous worlds than most (though not all) other religious Americans. For biblicists these relatively small worlds can function as effective "polausibility structures" to sustain the "reality" and believability of their particular assumptions and convictions--as the same small worlds that most everyone else, including atheists and adherents of every other belief system, so for them.

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 60-61.

Scottish Common Sense Realism

Implicit in Scottish commonsense realism is a "picture theory" of language, which say that "words are directly knowable by the mind and, in addition, are direct representations of the objects to which they refer. Logically, therefore, words and sense impressions are identical in that each refers directly to objects. Those objects, in turn, are directly and with utmost certainty known by the mind." The most important Scottish commonsense realist, Thomas Reid (1710-96), put it this way: "Language is the express image and picture of human thoughts; and from the picture we may draw same certain conclusions concerning the original [object to which language refers]."

In Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 56.

Inerrancy and disunity

Recall that among committed inerrantists we will find those who believe in "predestination" and "free will," and in "premillennial" and "postmillennial" eschatology, in "infant baptism" and "believer's baptism," in the "elder rule" and "congregational rule." On almost every important interpretive question in every biblical book, we find a wide variety of "inerrantist" readings. So it is clear that inerrancy does not guarantee a correct reading of Scripture, nor does it prevent all sorts of exegetical tomfoolery...Even though evangelicals deny the diversity of Scripture, the theological diversity within evangelicalism is a good and ready indicator of Scripture's truer nature...It is nardly conceivable that evangelicals could assent to so many differing and contradictory viewpoints if the Bible spoke as clearly and univocally as we are wont to suppose.

Kenton Sparks in Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 26.

Interpretive Pluralism

...as the Reformation began to spin out of control (from his point of view) with the spread of Anabaptist and other sectarian groups, Luther had to back away fromt he perspecuity of only one "correct" view and recognize the potential to prove a wide variety of doctrinal positions from scripture, admitting, "I learn now that it is enough to throw many passages together helter-skelter, whether they fit or not. If this be the way, then I can easily prove from Scripture that beer is better than wine." In another, more general  sense, this problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism goes all the way back to teh recognition of the early church fathers Tertullian (155-230) and Vincent of Lerins (early fifth century) about the impossibility of using scripture to persuade heretics of the error of their ways. Vincent wrote, "Owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another, so that it seems capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters." According to Tertullian, scriptural "ambiguity" and the possibility of reading the Bible in different ways means that a "controversy over the Scriptures can clearly produce no other effect than help to upset either the stomach or the brain." Tertullian observed: "Though most skilled in the Scriptures, you will made no progress, when everything which you maintain is denied on the other side, and whatever you deny is (by them) maintained. As for yourself, indeed, you will lose nothing but your breath, and gain nothing but vexation from their blasphemy...Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures."

In Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 21.

Joseph Smith and the problem of interpretive pluralism

In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinion, I often said to myself, What is to be done? who of all these parties are right? Or, are they all wrong together? If one of them is right, which is it, and how shall I know? The teachers of religion of the diferent sects destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. At length I came to the conclusion that I must...ask of God.

In Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 20.

Inerrancy and disunity

N.T. Wright observes, "It seems to be the case that the more you insist that you are based ont eh Bible, the more fissiparous you become; the church splits up into more and more little groups, each thinking that they have got biblical truth right." Likewise,Kevin Vanhoozer admits that "inerrancy--the belief that the Bible speaks truly in all that it affirms--does not necessarily generate interpretative agreement among those who hold to it...It is one thing to posit the Bible's truthfulness in all that it affirms, quite another to say what the truth of the Bible is." Similarly, D.A. Carson notes that "I apeak to those with a high view of Scripture: it is very distressing to contemplate how many differences there are among us as to what Scripture actually says...The fact remains that among those who believe the canonical sixty-six books are nothing less than the Word of God written there is a disturbing array of mutually incompatible theological opinions." As far back as 1958, Geoffrey Bromiley had observed--anticipating the present book's view--that "We have to recognize that the Bible is...a fruitful source of dissension and disunity in and among churches, so that acceptance of its authority does not solve at once the problem of unity...The interpretation of the Bible gives rise to a whole series of more or less important and divisive differences...These are obviously very real difficulties which cannot be ignored even if they cannot be fully embraced and answered....Even in this sphere (of the Bible) there is the constant bias to disunity."

In Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 18-19